ramz

I watched the second round of the Champions’ League knockout stage between Werder Bremen (Germany!) and Juventus… It was an experience… (even makes up for the boring ‘date’)…

Bremen had won in the home stage and could have easily won this won… the Germans went crazy when they scored a goal early on, and held on to the lead throughout the first half… as usual, my outsider mode kicked in, and I was passively taking it all in, not really caring about the game, or the people, or the atmosphere… I don’t believe in forced euphoria… if it comes, it comes naturally…

Anyway, the Italians tied it, some twenty minutes into the second half, and here’s where things got funny… the bar went still… a hundred crazed fans suddenly stopped breathing and synchronized their heart beats to the ticking clock on the big screen… it was all well until two minutes before the end of regulation… the goalkeeper, who had done a commendable job, made a pretty save and decided to add some Hollywood to it… he jumps, twists, hits the grass and rolls… unfortunately, he loses his grip on the ball, and a Juventus player gently drives it into the goal… 2:1 Juventus, Bremen was heading towards an elimination…

The pub uttered a collective gasp of surprise, agony and rage… I had to keep myself from giggling (Giggle LESS!)… It was Emerson, the Brazilian squad’s captain who’d driven the proverbial stake into the german fans’ hearts… to me, it’s always a good day when a brazilian footballer gives it to a german one… the goalkeeper was distraught, the players were spent… the commentator could only repeate “It’s god’s will” over and over again… all around  me, people were cursing… a guy right behind me alternated between “Fucking Torino”, “It can’t be true”, “ShitFuckCrap”, and “I can’t believe it” for the rest of the game, the recap, and the remainder of the evening… someone started sobbing in the background… the bartender stopped serving drinks and just stood there, shellshocked. There was a rush to the toilets; one after the other, the sad fans pissed out the remains of liters of Beck’s (Beer from Bremen!)… I wish I had my camera…

Someone had recently burst a bubble of mine by telling me that I didn’t look italian (Gasp!!!)… I thanked the gods for that… and laughed silently… The commentator had recovered and was going on and on about this being a once-in-a-lifetime situation, and something about the end of the world…

A replay of the lucky goal later on elicited a “This is football at its most brutal… a freefall from heaven into hell… insufferable pain… i’m going numb” from the self-same commentator, Fritz Von Thurn und Taxis…

The barkeeper was well into his fifth beer as we walked out the door.